Joseph Conrad

An Outcast of the Islands Joseph Conrad

When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inwardassertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue assoon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired effect. It was goingto be a short episode-a sentence in brackets, so to speak-in the flowing tale of his life: a thing ofno moment, to be done unwillingly, yet neatly, and to be quickly forgotten. He imagined that hecould go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the shade, breathing in the perfume offlowers in the small garden before his house. He fancied that nothing would be changed, that hewould be able as heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his half-caste wife, to notice withtender contempt his pale yellow child, to patronize loftily his dark-skinned brother-in-law, wholoved pink neckties and wore patent-leather boots on his little feet, and was so humble before thewhite husband of the lucky sister. Those were the delights of his life, and he was unable to conceivethat the moral significance of any act of his could interfere with the very nature of things, could dimthe light of the sun, could destroy the perfume of the flowers, the submission of his wife, the smileof his child, the awe-struck respect of Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family. Thatfamily's admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and completed his existence in aperpetual assurance of unquestionable superiority. He loved to breathe the coarse incense theyoffered before the shrine of the successful white man; the man that had done them the honour tomarry their daughter, sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high; the confidential clerk ofHudig & Co. They were a numerous and an unclean crowd, living in ruined bamboo houses, surrounded by neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar. He kept them at arm's lengthand even further off, perhaps, having no illusions as to their worth. They were a half-caste, lazy lot, and he saw them as they were-ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized men of various ages, shufflingabout aimlessly in slippers; motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of pink calicostuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew upon decaying rattan chairs in shadycorners of dusty verandahs; young women, slim and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving languidlyamongst the dirt and rubbish of their dwellings as if every step they took was going to be their verylast. He heard their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children, the grunting of their pigs; hesmelt the odours of the heaps of garbage in their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted. But hefed and clothed that shabby multitude; those degenerate descendants of Portuguese conquerors; hewas their providence; he kept them singing his praises in the midst of their laziness, of their dirt, oftheir immense and hopeless squalor: and he was greatly delighted. They wanted much, but he couldgive them all they wanted without ruining himself. In exchange he had their silent fear, theirloquacious love, their noisy veneration. It is a fine thing to be a providence, and to be told so onevery day of one's life.